Viewing YouTube Clips Might Infect Your Computer

The online video sharing service infected with Ziob trojan

The security companies from the Internet warned that the popular YouTube is infected with the Ziob trojan so, watching some certain clips might infect you computer as well. Secure Computer and ComSentry Network were the two security firms that discovered the presence of the threat, adding that the video clip assaults the viewer with adverts. According to Tech.co.uk, the ads might attempt to steal ID information and other private details stored on the users' computers.

"The fact is, no one expects to find malware hidden in YouTube files. Yet the medium's popularity is highly alluring as a mass distribution vehicle for malicious code," says Secure Computing's Paul Henry according to the same source. "What's alarming is that - from a security perspective - many users and organisations will be blindsided and potentially seriously exposed."

Obviously, it's very hard to determine if a certain clip is dangerous or not as there is no software solution able to discover this type of threats. Moreover, YouTube doesn't filter the content uploaded on the page to block the malicious clips so the danger is even bigger.

"Over the last seven days, two major threats have been exposed that relate to these sites: Pfizer lost the personal details of 17,000 staff members after a company laptop was used to access a P2P network that deposited a 'back door Trojan' on the device," says Alex Raistrick of ComSentry for Tech.co.uk.

The popular online video sharing service YouTube was acquired in October 2006 by the Mountain View company Google that paid no less than $1.65 billion. Since the acquisition was made, YouTube grew up a lot, becoming a revolutionary service for most of the Internet users. Take for example the police officers who were trying to resolve important cases with the help of YouTube. They uploaded surveillance clips on YouTube in a move meant to obtain valuable information from the registered members and other viewers of the clips.